"Come at any hour," replied the Admiral. "Don't fear that you may disturb me."
Then he went to his hotel, and hopefully, fearfully, remained awake until and through the "dog watch" hours, but in vain.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
THE OTHER COUPLE.
AS Harry and Fenie had no prospective fortunes complicated by scraps of paper in another man's pocket, they had every reason to be entirely happy, yet soon they found themselves very much to the contrary. Fenie had begun early, like a loyal wife that was to be, to tell Harry of everything that was on her mind, and Harry, like a good brother, began to be concerned about his sister's prospects. The family fortunes were not in as bad condition as Trixy had led the Admiral to fear, but what loving brother could be entirely cheerful while his sister was in danger of losing fifty thousand dollars?
He began to be absent-minded at home, and Kate quickly noticed it, and asked him what was the matter, and when he replied, "Nothing," he did it in a tone that whatever was the matter was the reverse of nothing, so she set herself to discovering what it could be. She at once assumed that it was trouble of some sort between him and Fenie, and she determined to rectify it, no matter what it might be. They were mere children, Harry and Fenie, in Kate's estimation, and would need her sisterly care and supervision until they were safely married.
With the best of intentions she called upon Fenie to find out all about it, and she found the girl in a state of high excitement, for she had been helping Trif to search every place in the house where those awful sketches could possibly have been put, for Phil, like many another man, was an adept at dropping the contents of his pockets in unexpected places. Kate was thinking of nothing but the business on which she had come, so she proceeded promptly to business.
"Harry seems quite unhappy," she began bluntly. "He is entirely unlike his usual merry self."